Viridian sapped by non-core arms

NORTHERN Ireland Electricity group Viridian became the latest utility to feel the pain from diverging into telecoms and other businesses as it reported an 85% collapse in profits for last year.

Its flagship non-regulated business, outsourcing specialist Sx3, dived £5.3m into the red, from a £13.5m profit last time. The unit also had to write down goodwill on acquisitions of £26m and incurred £3.3m of restructuring costs.

Nevada, its telecoms joint venture with Energis, widened losses to £5.5m and took £40m in write-downs on its value. Its future depends on what happens to struggling and up-for-sale Energis. Viridian also took a £1.3m loss on the £111m disposal of its Open + Direct financial service business. Group pre-tax profits for the year ended March fell to £14.3m.

Viridian held the final dividend at last year's level which, after a rise at the interim stage, gives a total payout up 2.6% at 31.42p a share. It is not giving guidance on dividend policy until it sorts out its disputed pricing settlement with regulator Ofreg. The core electricity business lifted operating profits nearly 6% to £87m.

Chief executive Patrick Haren said this year it would be getting increased contributions from its Energia supply business in the Republic, and first-time contributions from the Moyle Interconnector link to the British mainland and the new Huntstown power station south of the Irish border. Chairman Philip Rogerson said: 'We have made progress on a number of fronts, particularly in positioning the business to take advantage of the opportunities provided by energy market liberalisation in both Northern Ireland and the Republic.'